Another Time
by LostInTheDreams
Summary: Conan never believed in time travel though that hardly matters when he gets an inside view of his would-be killer's life - through the eyes of a child. [Second Chap. added because... spontaneity]
1. Another Time

_**AN:** This is just a small side story I had the idea of after writing 'Tonic'_

* * *

 **Another Time**

...

 _"'Evil' is quite a blanket term. People aren't the demonic characters we would like them to be sometimes."  
\- David Morrissey_

 _..._

Conan held the small hourglass in his hand, unsure if he was to believe what he'd been told.

Apparently, the hourglass, which couldn't possibly time an hour with how small it was, could do more than fail to keep time. How someone could travel through it with something that seemed like it would lose a fight with a spatula, he wasn't sure.

"You activated it, you have to use it. Hurry up, I want it back. That took a long time to make."

Conan shook his head, the teenager in front of him dressed really light for the weather they were having. No matter how many times he tried to hand it back to her after she dropped it, she insisted he use it.

"You know, I'm not even sure how to use it. Besides, it can't really travel through time." Conan lifted it up to her once more. "I have to go meet my friends."

"You'll leave from this second and I told you, you can't travel _through_ time, only back. You're still going to be anchored here, and the future is too unpredictable to travel to." She sighed. " _Here I wanted to use it to find out some embarrassing things about him when he was little."_

Conan's shoulders fell a little. "Okay, so if it doesn't work, will you take it back?"

"Sure. You'll only be gone a short while. I'll take it back after." The girl touched the top of the hourglass with her finger. "Think of someone you want to go back into the past and see. I have it set to childhood so there's not much I can do about that. You need to concentrate on who you want to see."

Conan humored the idea for a second. "Do I need to know their name?"

The girl shrugged. "You shouldn't. It searches for the person that's in your mind. It can't really go through time searching for names. It would be strange if it cataloged people that way, though I suppose it would be easier."

Conan shrugged. "Okay, so I'm thinking about them. Now what?"

"Give it a second."

Nothing happened for that one second he gave it. In the next few, a red light seemed to travel over the hourglass, flowing over his hand and outlining his skin in a strange light. He almost dropped the hourglass, watching the world around him fade into the colors and swirl before him. Feeling off balance and like someone had just thrown him into a dryer, Conan had to fight off being sick..

Suddenly, the colors stopped and he seemed to be outside a school. Looking around, a lot of the kids around him were his own age. Nothing really seemed all that different and he found it hard to believe that this wasn't some kind of joke and she hadn't somehow drugged him and dropped him off somewhere.

No matter what time or place this was, a scream was the first thing to get his attention.

Conan spun around, having heard some of the kids behind him, though there were a lot of them there. A half dozen or so were in a circle, the others a looser clump that allowed Conan to push his way through to see what had made that girl scream and run off as a few of the other girls had.

For some reason he had expected to see a dead body and a pool of blood. To be fair, there was some blood and Conan shoved his way into the tighter knit group that seemed to be hitting some kid who wasn't even standing, half curled up on the floor to protect themselves from the worst of the kicks.

"Knock it off!"

Someone pulled his shirt from behind and Conan coughed, pulling the front away from his throat so he could breathe. "You back off. This isn't any of your business."

The kid behind him was taller but that was all he could tell. The aggressors didn't seem to care about him after he'd been stopped and went back to beating on the other kid. He shouted at them a few more times, at least trying to get the attention of someone who could do something. He could stop the kids, but the force he'd have to use to do it would be excessive.

The few minutes the one-sided fight went on seemed endless. The group of kids around slowly disbanded and the aggressors, snickering and high-fiving one another, went off, the larger kid holding him letting go of his shirt.

Conan knelt down by the kid, thinking his hair was kind of long for a boy as it almost reached his shoulders and hid most of his injured face. "Hey, you okay?" It was a stupid question but the only one he could think to ask. "We should get you some help."

The kid's skin was really pale, his hair a very fair color as well. He wondered if he was foreign. It was even lighter than Haibara's.

"I'll be fine." The boy shaded his eyes, looking around. One of them would be black in the next few hours and there was blood running out of the side of his mouth. "Did you see where they kicked my hat?"

Conan looked around, finding a plain black hat nearby and handing it to him, watching the boy put it on and some relief appear around his eyes as he blinked them. Conan had to wonder if he had light sensitivity. With how light his features were, that wouldn't be surprising. "You sure you're okay? You're bleeding. It'd be better if you told a teacher what they were doing."

"No it wouldn't. I hit Tamaki-kun first." He wiped the blood away and stood, nothing but bruises and scrapes that were bleeding a bit. "And they'd probably call my parents."

The other kid had a few inches on him, somewhere around Mitsuhiko's height, and he had to look up to meet his eye. Conan hated being short for his age, considering this boy looked around seven or eight. "Still, this shouldn't be common."

"No, but I don't want to, okay?"

"Okay." Conan raised his hands, backing up a bit. "But it's not right and you shouldn't let them get away with it." Teachers wouldn't be able to listen to it and not tell his parents. Why the other was so adamant about them not knowing, Conan wasn't sure. He held out his hand. "I'm Edogawa Conan. I'm… new around here. What's your name?"

The kid glared at his hand a bit before relaxing, sticking his hands in his pockets instead. "Junsuke. I'm not new around here."

Okay, no last name. The kid didn't seem friendly. Still, that wasn't an excuse to get beat up and the other kids were still wandering around, though he did notice they were giving the both of them a wide berth.

Reaching into his pocket, the boy took out a few pills and swallowed them dry, making Conan wince. He found even he had trouble dry swallowing, those that did it frequently the only ones he noticed not having a hard time with it. "Pills?"

"They're for my pain." Junsuke pulled the hat lower on his eyes. "Need some?"

Conan quickly shook his head. "I'm good. They just kind of kept me from getting involved. No one hit me. Do you always keep pain pills on you?"

"They're not for that, they're for the headaches. The sun kind of bothers me. We done here?"

Conan let his eyes wander without moving his head. "I don't know. If you're alone again, is anyone going to go after you?"

Junsuke looked around like he had, though under the brim of his hat to make it less noticeable. "I don't know."

"Then I think I'm going to tag along for a while."

Junsuke sighed. "Just what I need, a sidekick. Don't you have something better to do, like go to school? I think I'm going to skip the rest of the day." He walked off, Conan following behind.

He frowned at that thought. School had been over when he'd run into that girl around Ran's age. "I'm not from around here so no, I don't have anything to do."

Conan didn't relax until they left the school grounds, subtly watching the other boy as he showed similar signs, just not as obvious. "Does that happen a lot?"

"Only when someone picks a fight with me, maybe once a week. They're all idiots so I don't really care. If you're going to be in the neighborhood, I wouldn't hang out with me. I'm bad luck."

Conan tipped his head. "Bad luck?"

"Yeah." He raised his hand, looking out of the corner of his eye instead of facing him. "I have the same condition my mom has. It's not like it's deadly or anything, but apparently not being normal is a bad thing. I also have a bad memory, doctors call it 'selective amnesia'. I might not remember who you are come tomorrow, so there's no point in getting to know me."

"I don't really see how that makes you bad luck."

"Not me myself, just for those who want to know me. Like I said, I forget people easily. I can't control it." Junsuke shrugged. "I'm the bad luck that people run into, the bad friend who forgets their names."

"I don't think that's bad luck." Conan had never heard of something like that, though he was sure now about the light sensitivity. He had to guess the boy had some for of albinism. It was rare and he'd never gotten a good look at anyone with it before. "I don't plan on staying around here either, so I don't care if you forget me."

Junsuke stopped, looking him over for what had to be the dozenth time, though doing so obviously now. "Thanks, I guess. No one's ever said that to me before."

"You should go home and put some ice on your face." Conan didn't know what else to do if he wasn't going to go inform anyone. Fights like that once a week were far too often.

"Might as well. My dad's not home yet and my mom won't care what time it is. Are you going to follow me all the way there?"

Conan had to stop too or get too far ahead of him. "I need to see something and my phone hasn't been working."

Junsuke frowned hard. "You have one of those portable phones they just came out with?"

Conan swallowed, afraid of that. There wasn't much that could keep his cell from getting reception when he was at ground level and obviously somewhere well inhabited. "Yeah, it's not that good though." Had he… really gone back in time? If he had, there were so many kids around, and- No, he had been thinking about…

"Keep going. Left at the second street." Junsuke looked around a moment before going into his pocket and taking out a cigarette. "I don't want my mom to smell it."

"You smoke?" It was more than that too. He watched him light it, striking the match and throwing it to the side of the road. He was left-handed.

"Yeah. I stole some from my dad last year. It's relaxing. Why? Going to tell on me? I'll just say you're lying."

"No, ah. No, I'm not going to tell on you or anything. I was just surprised. You're… kind of young to be smoking."

"I'm kind of young for a lot of things. Dealing with idiots is, apparently, not an age thing. So, are you going to start walking or are we going to stand around here all day?"

Conan didn't want to turn away. If what that girl had said was true and this wasn't some type of drug-induced dream, he was staring at Gin right now. Gin before he became the man that Conan knew. Gin when he was only a child.

Albeit a child with more knowledge and apparent life experience than a child should have, but a child nonetheless, and one with no reason to hide anything from him.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Huh?" Conan had to get his head back in order. "Like what?"

"Like I'm a toy on sale you've been wanting to buy."

"Was I? I'm sorry." He smiled and put a hand behind his head. "I didn't mean to."

"Smoking isn't good for you. Don't be jealous." Gin, or Junsuke, took in and let out a practiced breath of smoke, letting it out slowly. "There's just not a lot that calms me down. Find your own habit."

"It's all yours. Don't worry about it." Conan backed up, unsure of what to do now. He could follow him to his house but the odds of Gin still living there were slim to none. He would have erased a lot of his true life from his current one. A last name would be a lot to go on. Even a first name and finding out where he was right now would be great. Since he couldn't use his phone, he'd have to watch the street names.

There was a scream again. Conan was so used to turning and heading towards the sound of one that he quickly forgot about everything he could get out of this younger version of Gin and found his feet taking him towards where they had just come from and down a few alleys before arriving at a small mart, a man pressed up against a wall with shaking hands as the few behind the glass were scrambling around, one of the men inside on the phone and hopefully calling the police.

"Wait up you idiot."

Conan was startled a second time when Gin was behind him, panting with his hands on his knees as he got his breath back, the cigarette he had nowhere in sight.

"What the heck was that about?"

"Why did you-" Conan had his attention quickly pulled back as a woman cried out someone's name, Kashimama if he'd heard her right, and fell to the floor, near a man who had a large amount of blood on his head and wasn't responding to her.

"Don't touch him!" Conan moved forward, stopping before he messed with the scene too. "Back up. The police have to take care of this. You might erase some of the evidence." He looked around at the others, going closer to the man himself to check for a pulse. "Did anyone see what happened?"

"Ya-yeah." The man with the shaking hands spoke quietly, getting Conan's full attention as he stood, having found no pulse. "There was a woman. She walked past. I didn't see her face but she had light colored hair and I think she was wearing some kind of dress. It looked like she said something to him." The man looked down at the deceased. "I don't know what it was. I was only just leaving and then… then he just kind of fell on the ground. I think I heard something hard fall too, but I don't know what it was."

"Try and remember everything that you can. Go inside and write it down so you don't forget." Conan turned to the woman. "Ma'am, do you know him?"

The woman nodded, tears streaming down her face. "Yes. He's my husband. We were shopping, only shopping. Why- why did this happen? What happened?" More tears came and Conan felt a part of himself go out to her, knowing it was taking a lot to keep her hands off her husband's body.

"Is he dead?"

Conan stiffened, Gin leaning over his shoulder and looking the man over, not seeming fazed. That was, until he put a hand up to his nose and mouth and took a step back.

"Ah, he smells."

"Death isn't pretty. Stand back." Conan wasn't sure how much Gin would listen to him but, as a seeming child to an actual child, he should at least be no more difficult than anyone else.

While he was listened to, a few of the others from the mart started to come out to see what had happened. He ushered them all back in, the body too close to the door to risk them walking out. Informing the owner of what happened, they all had to wait for the police to come and take everyone's story.

From what Conan could pick up, he'd been a financial consultant at a nearby law firm. There were a lot of reasons he could have enemies and the police were looking into it. He didn't miss the fact that the man had been shot, at close range, and likely with a silencer attached to the gun.

Having nothing to say himself and not recognizing any of the policemen who came up to him, Conan backed off once he was sure they had all of the facts. One of them, a man with short, dark hair and a kind face listened to him almost as well as Takagi-keiji would have.

Gin was sitting off on the other side of the street, playing with a small stick between his fingers, likely not risking smoking near the cops, though Conan doubted they'd care.

There was the frailty he saw in his eyes that scared him.

"Kind of seems peaceful, doesn't it?" Gin started speaking to him quietly as he moved beside him. "He's alive, doing all this meaningless work for people who quickly forget his name and now he's dead with nothing to worry about." Gin looked up at him. He wasn't sure what scared him more, the new weakness or the apathy he'd shown off earlier.

"It wasn't peaceful. It might have been fast but I'm sure it hurt. On top of that, he had things he wanted to do still. No life is meaningless. No one has the right to take something so short from someone else." Maybe his own eyes were a little hard, but Conan hated Gin, hated that he'd become someone who killed others so easily. "Can't you understand that?"

Gin winced, looking away and back at the body. "I wasn't saying it didn't hurt. I mean, he got shot. Bullets hurt. But now he doesn't have to worry about anything. Sometimes I wonder if anyone would care if something like that happened to me. Even if they did, sometimes I don't think that _I_ would care. It has to be better than this."

"What are you talking about?" In that second Conan realized that Gin wasn't associating with the killer, he was associating with the victim. He had no other recourse than to slap him. "Don't say stupid things like that! You're worried your mom would know you were smoking, how bad do you think she'd feel if you died? I'm sure even you have friends, somewhere! And if not now you will! Giving up on all of that is like making a mockery of the same life that your mom is living. You can't just say stuff like that like it doesn't matter!"

Gin was obviously stunned, wide eyes and now with a red mark on his face to go with the bruise. The next second Conan found himself in a very awkward position.

Gin shifted, getting to his knees and clinging to him, pulling him down to sit on the curb while the would-be assassin cried on his shoulder, shifting to hide the fact that he was, his expression hidden at the angle.

Not knowing what to do and caught off guard, Conan put his arms slowly around him, patting him on the back a little and trying to get him to calm down. It didn't take long, Gin getting himself together and wiping his eyes, far too used to composing himself. Conan had to wonder what had happened even before now.

"Sorry."

"It's okay. Just, don't go around saying things like that. Life is important."

"I know. I just wish it wasn't so hard all the time." He took in and let out a few breathes, composed enough that, aside from the slightly red eyes, it didn't look like he'd just been crying. "I suppose there's a reason for living out there past the idiots in the world. Wish I knew what it was."

"You'll figure it out." Hopefully. Conan didn't know if he could affect the past, but if he could, maybe he could get Gin to change. If he did, he wasn't sure what kind of effect it would have. He'd never looked into time travel before, but he wished dearly that he hadn't ever had to mess with it.

"Maybe." Gin sighed. "You know, I already forgot your name."

"It's not important." Conan hoped he never recalled it if this did have an effect on the future.

"I guess not." He was falling back into that strange apathy and Conan had to feel for him. Gin, as a child, was different. It was hard to be different. He'd never had to put up with anything like this.

Conan held out his hand again. "Whatever happens in the future, here and now, I'm your friend. Who cares about names?"

He didn't think Gin would smile. On his face it was something soft, like a flower that just got to see the sun. It eased up further worry Conan had as Gin took his hand and shook it. "Honestly, I've never had a friend before."

"Honestly, you're kind of scary," Conan said without thinking. "And I'm not going to be here long. Try loosening up. Not everyone is going to treat you badly. Go find the people out there who like you for who you are. It's a little soon to be figuring out any life decisions, but at least try and figure out what kind of person you are and what kind of people you want to be around. They tie in with one another."

"I guess. It's not that I think everyone's a bad person, I just don't know if I care to deal with their personal issues. I suppose I told you about some of mine though. Can't expect others to listen if I can't. Maybe I'm one of the idiots out there too."

"You shouldn't call yourself an idiot. You might start to believe it."

Gin smirked, pointing at himself. "Top in the class."

Conan smiled back, moving his arms and looking over younger Gin. He was a little backwards, but a few friends and some adults that cared enough, and he couldn't really see him turning into the Gin he knew. "I wish you could understand."

Gin lost a bit of his smile, raising and eyebrow. "Understand what?"

"Nothing." Conan shook his head, getting up and walking away, waving over his shoulder. "Go home and take care of your mom."

"Sure. Where are you going?"

"Nowhere important." Conan reached into his pocket, taking out the little hourglass. He had felt it in there when he'd bent down over the body. "Though hopefully home."

Color swirled his vision once more, making him sick once more with it, before he was again standing before the teenage girl, his bearings even worse than before as he fell on his butt in front of her.

"Good, you're back. Give it to me." The girl took the hourglass out of his hand faster than he could stop her, walking off.

"Hey, wait! Did that… did that really happen?"

She stopped and turned. "Of course it did. The timeline would have changed things around so it felt like a dream, but whatever you did would still have happened, it just becomes insignificant. If you were trying to change the current time period, you can't do that. What's happened has happened. Now don't go picking up things that aren't yours."

Conan watched her walk off, trying to deal with all this new information. He had Gin's real name now. He knew the streets he lived near. He could figure out the town, as it didn't seem to be Tokyo. He was going to look into that first, with Hakase's help.

What he'd do with that information, as it probably wouldn't end up leading him to Gin, he wasn't sure. He'd cross that bridge when he came to it.


	2. Sweet and Cold

Okay, I wasn't going to go any further with this little segue than I have but then I started to have a conversation, reread it, drew a picture from it, and now we have a part two that I hadn't planned on XD  
This is messing around with **episodes 722-723** (So some of it will be messing with the cannon and changing it around)

* * *

 **Sweet and Cold**

 **…**

 _"I want to have the eyes of an adult to see the world as it is, but I more desperately want to have the heart of a child to make certain that I never forget what it could be."  
― Craig D. Lounsbrough_

 **…**

Before the teen with the red angry eyes could get far, she turned back to him.

Conan had felt something too. It was like the area around had somehow expanded and constricted on itself, almost knocking him off his feet. He stared back at her, confused.

"Baka!" The teen shouted, her longer red-tinged hair blowing behind her as she ran towards him. Conan put his hands up, unsure what she was going to do, realizing only when she was near on him that she wasn't going for him. The teen knelt beside him, her arms out, as if looking for something.

"What?"

"Did you let someone touch you!?" The question was loud and demanding but it didn't make her turn towards him, still searching the air as if there was something there.

In the next moment, there was.

The teen had her hands on the shoulders of the younger version of Gin that Conan had just left behind, the boy coughing as if he couldn't breath, a hand at his mouth and the other clutching his chest.

"Relax. Breath. You should never travel like that without an anchor. You're lucky you're not dead. You're even luckier," she spat, this time turning to face him. Conan just blinked at the both of them. "Do you have any idea how you could have messed with the future by actually killing off someone in the past? This isn't insects we're dealing with, it's people!"

"I didn't mean to…" Conan wasn't sure what he'd done in the first place, but he certainly didn't mean to bring anyone back. He thought he'd walked far enough away from him. Maybe Gin had followed him when he had his back turned.

It took a minute or two for Gin to stop coughing and go back to breathing. They were deep and sounded a bit painful, but whatever hyperventilating his body was doing was easing.

"Are you okay?" The teen asked, moving her hands on his shoulders a bit to get a response.

Gin looked like he would have fallen over if he were standing, swaying a bit even on his knees as he looked up at her. "I… I think so."

"Good." She let the boy go, standing and looking down at Conan. "You take care of him. It's going to take me a while to fix this. I can't just go back with him and you can't do it so soon after without killing the both of you. Watch him. It shouldn't take me more than a day or two. _Don't_ get him killed, _don't_ let him change anything, _don't_ let him take anything back with him. I'll try and fix all this if I can."

"Wait, but I-"

"He can mess with our time a bit. We're in the present and having him here won't tear apart the fabric of time too terribly, but this is the future for him and having two of him in one time era is bad enough, traveling further down the line himself, having no conduit, is going to be pushing the boarders as it is. Watch him. I _will_ be back."

The teen whose name Conan still had yet to learn walked off, leaving him alone on the sidewalk with the past version of his attempted murderer.

Conan took in and let out a breath, looking down at Gin. For his part, the other kid seemed more confused than he was. "Ah, I guess you're going to be with me for a while. Try not to touch anything."

"The future?" Gin looked around, as if expecting to see flying cars or something. "What?"

"It's hard to explain. I don't even get it." Conan scratched his head, wondering what he was going to do with him. A day. It wasn't like he couldn't pass him off as a friend or something and get him to stay over at Mouri's. He was sure Haibara would kill him if he tried to get him to stay over at the professor's and he wasn't sure what Akai-san would do. Conan wasn't too sure what he'd do himself.

Gin put a hand to his head but stood up. "I'm confused. What happened? Where am I?"

"Tokyo." That was easy enough to answer. "Probably dozens of years after wherever and whenever we just were."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Gin stated in a flat, disbelieving tone. "When I'm an adult kids go around time traveling? I don't think so."

Conan sighed again, a bit of a smile on his face and his eyes leveled. "I didn't believe in it either. It kind of happened on accident and you came back with me on accident."

"Hey, Conan-kun!"

Conan jumped a bit, turning and seeing Ayumi-chan and the others walking down the street towards him. Mitsuhiko had a soccer ball in his hand and Haibara was doing something with the bottom of the short dress she was wearing today.

"Hakase says the cake won't be delivered for a while so we figured we'd go find you and play some soccer so we didn't have to wait at his house."

Crap. Conan didn't know what to do. He just sort of stood in front of Gin, knowing it wouldn't do much with the few inches the other had on him, Haibara likely going to freak out if she noticed something. Heck, he would freak out too if this wasn't all so crazy.

"Conan-kun, who's that with you?" Ayumi looked worried, taking a few steps ahead of the others, trying to get a better look even with the few yards still between them. "I've never seen her before."

"Hey!" Gin shouted, pushing Conan a bit to the side. "I'm not a girl!"

Ayumi and the others froze, Gin glaring them down.

To be fair, that wasn't a bad reason to get angry. Conan pushed him back, just a bit. He'd seen him fighting before and didn't feel like getting punched. "Knock it off. It was kind of hard to tell since I was in the way."

Gin looked sulky, which was a funny look on him, and folded his arms across his chest. "Whatever. I still say it's pretty obvious I'm a guy though."

"I'm sorry." Ayumi bowed to him before closing the distance. Conan didn't miss when Haibara stayed further back. She was typically like that with strangers, but not with kids. "I didn't mean to get you mad."

"It's okay, I guess. It was a mistake." Gin looked between the other kids and it was a little bit weird, seeing him shorter than Genta and barely as tall as Mitsuhiko.

"Well, you want to play with us too?" Mitsuhiko held the ball out, as if it weren't obvious what they were going to play. "We're uneven anyway."

"Hey, we have to be!" Genta complained. "Conan-kun's better than the rest of us. I get to be on his team if we're playing three on three."

"Wait, that's not fair. I-"

"Hey," Gin put up his hands, looking between the two other boys. "It's okay. I don't have to play. I'm probably not that good anyway."

"Probably? You've never played soccer before?"

"Ah, not really. I mean, I know how you play and all, I just don't really play much myself." Gin shrugged. "There's usually too many kids to be on the field and I don't really care all that much."

"No, it's fine. You can play. Conan-kun will be fine with just me on his team, right?" Ayumi-chan smiled at him. "That way even if the numbers are different, no one will be mad, right?"

"I- I guess." Conan didn't much care but a soccer game seemed like a pretty easy way of getting Gin out of the way for the day. He looked around at Haibara but she didn't seem freaked out like she normally did, she just didn't seem to want to get too close to them. "If everyone's okay with that."

"Sure, and if the new guy is good too, maybe we can fix up the teams better." Mitsuhiko smiled, shifting the ball to just one hand and waving. "I'm Tsuburaya Mitsuhiko, and this is Genta-kun, Ayumi-chan, and Haibara-san."

Gin nodded. "I'm Hori Junsuke." Conan blinked, having a full name to go off of now. "But call me Junsuke, or any version of that. I'm not a big fan of my family name."

"I guess that is a little depressing, but it's not that bad." Mitsuhiko took a step forward, grabbing Gin by the wrist and pulling him the way the kids had come from. "Come on, Conan-kun, or don't you think you can win?"

 _'Win? It's four against two_ ,' Conan thought with leveled eyes before shaking his head. "I'm coming."

…

Conan's small team of him, himself, and Ayumi, was winning. They were ahead by a few goals and it was easy to see why.

Haibara didn't feel comfortable around Gin and was staying back by the goal, only every time Gin went to try and help when Conan got past them, she'd back off even further, far enough that she wasn't playing defense any more than the goal post itself was – and that was a chalk outline behind the wire fence.

Gin, a credit to an actual seven year old, realized the insecurity after the second point and stayed to one side, as far away from her as possible. Not that it did much since he didn't hold onto the ball long whenever he got it at all and always passed it to one of the other.

Conan was as good as only playing against Genta and Mitsuhiko, the former a slow goalie and the latter not able to steal the ball from him.

"Okay, wait." Gin raised his hands after the score was six to nothing. "Maybe I should switch teams. I'm not very fast anyway. Maybe I'll be a better goalie."

"But Ayumi wants to be on Conan-kun's team," the younger girl complained quietly, Conan not really caring who was on what team as long as this stuck to being a game. If he was back at the agency he wasn't sure what problems he'd run into and Amuro-san was a bit too close. Better to get this day over with and mess with as little as possible.

"That should be fine. Right?" Gin looked uncomfortable, scratching his arm where he had been bleeding earlier that… day? "If the teams are still too uneven I don't mind sitting out. Like I said, I don't play much."

"It's fine." Conan tipped his head to Ayumi-chan. "You'll be midfield, okay? Play defensively if the ball gets past me and pass it to me if you get it."

Ayumi stepped forward with a nod. She was a hesitant soccer player but she liked the game. Having her as a goalie was purely for the fact that Conan only had one other player on his team and – as the weakest between them – Ayumi had been left with little choice on positions. Maybe everyone would start playing better now. It was a game for Kami's sake.

To be fair, it was a little better after that.

Haibara was a midfielder for Mitsuhiko so she wasn't rushing forward much. Gin he wasn't sure about, since Ayumi was able to get the ball after Genta threw it over his head. The tension was as good as gone until Haibara was passed the ball and, after going around him, was ahead of Mitsuhiko and had a clear shot at the goal.

"Hey, wait!" Gin had his hands up in front of his face and either his words or something else made Haibara stop, Conan watching her fall to the floor after it looked like she tripped when she missed the ball.

"Haibara-san, are you okay?" Mitushiko ran up to her and Conan followed, Haibara fixing her leg so she was kneeling in a more comfortable position than the 'sprawl' she'd been in.

Ayumi was already at here side and on her knees. "Aw, it's a cat. Where'd you come from little guy?"

Conan could easily see the calico over the heads of the others. "Oh, it's Taii-chan."

"Huh, you've seen this cat before?" Ayumi was looking down at it as if wanting to pet him but Haibara's hand was already on Taii's head.

"Yeah, he's a stray that's always visits the Poirot so I've seen him around."

"Huh, I've never seen that kind of-"

"Stay away from me!"

Gin froze where he was, having taken a few steps to get a better look at the cat. Instead of backing up he fisted his hands at his side. "Now what the heck did I do to you?! Why are you yelling at me! I don't even know you!"

"I said just stay away from me." Haibara lifted Taii-chan into her arms, taking a step back herself.

"Fine." This time did raise his hands, a gesture that seemed too common for him to like. He even waved them a bit. "I'm not coming closer to you. What the heck is your problem anyway? What, afraid of someone different than you? Well guess what, I _do_ bite so I'd be worried about me too."

"Stop, stop." Conan got between them, just in case. He didn't know Gin as a child but, future killer or not, Haibara was scared and he was the aggressor. "We're not fighting each other."

"But I didn't do anything this time. I didn't." Gin's hands shook and it kind of looked like there was water welling up in his eyes. "What did I do wrong? Screw you guys." And then he took off, further into the park and towards the trees.

"Hey, wait!" Conan took a step forward and stopped, turning back. "Mitsuhiko, can you go get him?"

"Sure."

Mitsuhiko didn't even hesitate taking off, and Conan wondered for a second if that was the right thing to do. Gin was a kid. It should be safe. He turned his attention to Haibara instead. "What's the matter?"

Haibara started back at him, her eyes hard and worried. "I don't know, you tell me."

Conan sighed. "He's a new kid, okay? He won't be staying long and he's going through some problems. A few hours ago some kids beat him up. He's not actually dangerous, and I know you saw the bruises."

"Why does he look like-"

"I don't know," Conan lied. He hadn't known it was Gin when he'd first seen him, but as a child he did have exceptionally light hair, green eyes, and from the first few passes it was easy enough to tell his dominate side was his left. "But he's just a kid. You don't have to be that harsh."

Haibara narrowed her eyes but that part was the truth and Conan stood by it. Gin was a kid. There was no need to take out any aggression on him as a child. It was like beating a dog that had done nothing wrong just because, at some point in the future, it was bound to. "Ease up, okay?"

Haibara nearly jumped when Ayumi put a hand on her shoulder. "I don't think he's bad. Every time he passed the ball he looked like he was scared he was doing it wrong. I think he was scared that he did something wrong to you."

Haibara let out a breath but there was an underlying current of tension around her that hadn't vanished. She did smile. "I'm sorry about that."

"Don't tell me you're sorry, tell Junsuke-kun." Ayumi smiled along with her anyway though and the three of them waited only a minute longer until Mitsuhiko came back, Conan a bit surprised Gin was behind, albeit behind him in a way that made Mitsuhiko seem like some protective mama bear and him the cub.

Gin kept his eyes averted the whole time with his hands either across his chest or moving nervously at his side. "Sorry for yelling at you… ah… red-head girl."

"Haibara Ai," Haibara repeated again. She didn't look like she was going to add more than the slight scolding before she sighed. "And I started it. I'm sorry for yelling at you for no reason."

"It's okay," Gin said with a shrug, still looking away. "People think I'm weird so I'm kind of used to it."

"Weird?" Mitsuhiko turned back to him, the freckled boy looking him over. "Why? Because of your hair?"

"Yeah. Well, yeah, that too and I have this kind of, problem with names. I'm not very good with them."

"Don't worry about that." Ayumi stepped up to him, getting in the space Gin had clearly designated for himself. "Some people are bad with names. If you forget mine, Ayumi will just tell you it again."

Gin snorted… actually snorted, a bit of laughter following. Conan had to blink.

"I don't think I'll forget yours as easily, Ayumi-chan, but if I do I'm sorry."

"Stop." Ayumi put a hand up to his face, close enough that she was likely touching his nose. "Ayumi said it was okay if you forget her name. You don't have to say you're sorry again."

Gin smiled and took her hand away from his face. Aside from an initial wince, he hadn't reacted confrontationally. "Sor- ah, yeah. Okay. Thanks I guess then?"

Ayumi smiled in return. "Yep. Now lets play some soccer and you can eat the cake that they're delivering to the professor's with us."

"Sounds great." Gin, very tentatively, took a step over to Haibara. "So are we good? Because I really have no idea what I did wrong."

"Yeah, it was my fault. Call it bad experience in the past. You just happen to look like someone I dislike."

Gin rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I look like a ghost or something. I've gotten that a few times. I don't really think my hair is _that_ light but I know my eyes are a little different." He put his left hand out. "Can I pet the cat?"

Haibara tensed up another moment before relaxing, holding Taii-chan a bit away from him. "Go ahead."

It was nothing that Gin did wrong but the second that he touched Taii-chan's head the cat noticed that he had an escape route from Haibara now and took off, a line of pink yarn following behind.

Gin pulled his hand back to himself and Haibara looked down at her dress, not wanting to pull on the yarn and hurt Taii-chan.

"It looks like his claw got stuck on your clothes."

"Well, it was hand knit."

"We should go see where he's going," Ayumi suggested, already taking off. Haibara was only a second behind her, Conan following purely on instinct, since leaving the kids alone never had good results.

Of course the cat ran across the street and they were faced jumping into the delivery van the same way Taii-chan did or else letting him get away. Conan made sure no one was in the vehicle and about to drive off before climbing in the back with the others and looking for the cat.

"Brrr, it's cold." Gin rubbed his arms, not dressed as warmly as the rest of them for the nipper weather. Back in his time it had been at least 10 degrees warmer. "What is this?"

"It must be a refrigerated delivery truck." Conan turned, hearing a meow and following the others to the back of the truck.

He smiled, Haibara going to Taii-chan first and picking him up, though it looked like he was just fine. He barely had time to turn when he heard words behind him, unable to catch what they were before seeing the thin ray of light shut off and Mitsuhiko run to the door, calling out that they were in there and not to close the door.

"Idiots," Gin said beside him, rubbing his hands across his arms. "Didn't they see the pink yarn? It's not like it's invisible."

Conan let out a breath, the others startled when the truck's engine started, clicking on the light on his watch. He looked around the truck. "It's fine. They'll be making more deliveries so it's not like we're going to be stuck in here for that long."

The others were around Ayumi, Gin taking the time to actually pet Taii-chan now that he could. The fair boy turning as if the air smelled funny and wrinkling his nose caught his attention. Then he sneezed. Conan laughed to himself.

"You really should be wearing more than a shirt and shorts in this weather," Mitsuhiko chided him. "You're going to catch a cold."

"Like I knew I'd be spending time in an ice truck." Gin shook his head. "It wasn't that bad playing soccer."

Right, they had left the soccer ball back in the field. Speaking of which, that head count came up one short.

Conan moved the flashlight around, finding her beside one of the boxes… and in her underwear. "Why are you in your underwear?"

"Because the yarn got caught on who knows what and now my clothes are gone so would you mind turning off the light?!" The word were biting but even if they weren't Conan pointed his watch away and clicked it off, a little embarrassed.

"Right, sorry."

If the others were embarrassed he didn't have time to see, the truck stopping and the sound of someone moving about outside reaching his ears.

"Someone's coming! They can't see me like this!"

"Let's hide!"

They all ran to the back, hiding behind the boxes where they had found Taii-chan. Conan heard the men talking, his eyes narrowing. As the men moved closer, Conan moved further away, around the corner where they were sure not to go.

 _Witness. Can't make a sound._ What were they talking about? It sounded like…

The doors closed and Gin wiped at his nose, sniffling a little. "Ah, it smells."

Conan was out from around the corner as soon as the door was closed and those men were gone. He carefully inspected the boxes, finding the one he was looking for and working away at the tape. He heard the others speaking, the van started, and then someone saying something about leaving the truck now.

"We probably shouldn't do that. It looks like someone was in here before us."

"What do you mean?" Conan noticed the others all gather around the open box before him, all of them taking in a breath, Gin the only one taking a step back after they saw the dead body, Conan's mind working on what he was facing now. He'd need to call the police.

He spoke with them quietly, for some reason the others surprised that the deliverymen were likely killers. No one would be stupid enough to have a body delivered, and the company would have found out long before now. It was easy enough to explain why the corners were bent and why they were using a cold delivery truck.

"We have to call the police. Someone let me borrow your phone?" Conan held his hand out. One of them would have theirs on them.

"I left mine at the professor's."

"So did I."

"Mine's been beeping that the battery is low, so it might be no good." Mitsuhiko handed over his phone, Gin trying to get a good look at it. He hadn't been able to see his before, when he'd asked. It was something new and shiny that he'd never seen before. Maybe he'd let him mess with it later.

"It's fine, we can charge the battery if we warm it." Conan smiled. This would be easy.

…

Takagi-keiji didn't pick up and Hakase should know better than to keep him waiting. Conan swore to himself, the deliverymen having almost discovered them. At least, from what he heard of their last conversation, it was an accidental murder. They still shouldn't be covering it up.

Asking around, he gathered what he could from the other in front of him, gently touching his head after Haibara hit him, realizing too late that she couldn't possibly have anything on her.

"Hey, you know," Gin took out the matches he had in his pocket. "I still have these if they can help at all."

Right, Gin likely had cigarettes on him still too, not that he'd pull those out in front of the others, in any case, he had what he needed. Conan smiled. "Keep them in case I need them later."

"Why, you have an idea what we can do with these? It doesn't look like we can use any of them to get away."

Conan just smiled. "Of course we can." There had to be a way.

…

Bringing Amuro-san into this wasn't something Conan wanted, not with Gin so close. Haibara was bad enough and he wasn't sure if he could really get away with having someone who looked so much like, well, who he was, just walk away. Maybe he was a bit happy when his first plan failed, maybe he wasn't.

His only other option was Akai, and that wasn't any more promising than Amuro.

Conan sighed, looking at the kids, his eyes wandering to the new member of their little detective team for the time being. "Junsuke-kun, can you stay in the back by these two? Just, make sure they're okay? The less obvious we are, the better."

"Yeah, sure." Gin shrugged, sniffling a little still. There wasn't much they could do about his warmer weather clothes though and he wasn't as bad off as Mitsuhiko had gotten, though Conan had told him what signs to look for.

That should be good enough. Amuro-san had good eyes but Haibara would be avoiding him, which would keep Gin out of the picture as well.

…

Maybe it was the dangerous situation they were in, maybe it was a hour spent locked up together in a freezing vehicle, but no one found time to be nervous anymore.

Gin, for his part, was glued to Subaru's phone. They had gotten him two for a reason and there was nothing on it to mess with. Ayumi was showing him how to download a few games and, as someone who didn't even know what a lighter was, Gin was finding them more than entertaining enough.

"It's lucky that we wound up right at the professors," Mitsuhiko stated, knocking on the door. There was still more than enough light out if they wanted to do something after the cake – which Conan had been deemed holder of when Subaru had handed it to him.

"Yeah. For being stuck in a delivery truck, we could have wound up on the other side of town."

Ayumi laughed. "Then the professor would have had to pick us up and there wouldn't be enough room."

"Oh, there you all are!" Hakase opened the door, the smell of far too many sweets wafting out. The professor smiled. "I have a surprise for you. I didn't think the cake would be enough. Come on in!"

The kids shouted, running in the door, but Gin stayed near him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, can I talk to you for a second, four-eyes?"

Conan leveled his eyes, shaking his head. He didn't think anyone was really that bad with names, but that would be a very good thing in the end. "Yeah, sure. Is something wrong?"

Gin waited for the door to close so they were more or less alone, looking towards the street. "To be honest, I thought this was some kind of weird trick you were playing on me for some reason. It's not like people don't do that for fun. The cars are real enough though, and they look pretty freaking weird. I'm not sure if there's a war or something with all the planes I keep seeing in the sky either." Gin pointed above him, where yes, there were two in the sky at the moment. "I think I need a little more explanation than running on nothing at this point. It's... kind of scary."

"They're just planes. We're not a war. Nothing has suddenly popped out from under the earth, no aliens have invaded, and we haven't been at war since… well, likely before you were born I'm going to assume?" Conan had no idea how old he was, no idea what year they'd been in before. "There's nothing to be scared of. Things are just a little newer."

"Yeah," Gin spoke quietly, running a hand through his hair and scratching the back of his neck. "That girl, that weird guy in the car and the other in the house. There are a lot more… um."

Conan frowned, unsure of what he was getting at.

Gin just shrugged in the end, looking at a loss for words, using his hands instead. "You know, like…"

"People like you?"

"Yeah." It had been a while, probably since before they wound up in the truck, that the other kid had smiled. "It's nice. I mean, no one at school was like me and now, here, no one really seems to care. I like it."

"Come on." Conan offered him his hand. "I can smell the donuts from out here and, knowing Genta, there might not be any left if we wait longer."

"Wait. One more question." Gin scratched at his arm before going back and messing with his hair. It seemed it was a pretty nervous kid, which was strange considering how young he was. 'Shy' didn't really exist much in anyone who hadn't gone through puberty yet. "Why me?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, why did I wind up here with you? Why were you with me before, with that… other body and all that stuff." Gin shrugged. "I've seen movies before, and I'm not an idiot or anything. You just coming back to look at me get beat up seems like a pretty stupid reason to… ah, time travel I guess."

"Yeah," Conan said honestly. There was some stuff he could lie to him about. Right now, Gin hadn't done anything wrong. "I know you, right now, kind of. I never really got very close to you and you're a lot older than me. I thought seeing you as a kid would give me some clues about who you are… were."

"Not much to tell, huh." Gin took out one of the cigarettes, playing with it instead of lighting it. "I'm pretty boring. What about now?" He looked around, as if there was someone in the yard with them. "I didn't see anyone who could be me, and at first I thought maybe we'd run into me, so you wanted me in the background."

"I don't think that's going to happen. The 'you' right now isn't near here. I'm not sure where they are." That, there, was a little bit more truth. "Even if you could meet yourself, I don't think you should."

"Why? Some space-time thing I don't know about? I guess that might make sense, at least, possibly. I don't know," he spoke with an exasperated breath. "I don't really get any of this."

"I don't get a lot of it either. Don't worry about it." Conan shook his hand a little, so Gin would still know it was there. "Bet you're hungry."

"Yeah, actually, I'm starving. I haven't had anything since-" Gin sneezed. "Ah, I think have cold or something." Being a kid it shouldn't have been as gross as he was when he used his sleeve instead of a handkerchief.

"The professor has some great medicine for getting rid of colds." Conan would be sure he got the right pill this time too.

"Okay." Gin looked at his hand a moment before taking it, like he wasn't sure of the gesture.

Inside was too hot, likely from the professor frying the donuts. The other kids were around the table already and Conan got himself some of the fried dough as well, hungry and awake for what felt like two days in a row now.

Ayumi sat closer to Gin when he took a spot at the edge of one of the couches, handing him one. "Here. They're really good."

"Thanks." Gin sniffed it, which made Conan hold back a sudden laugh, before taking a bite. The smile was back and he nodded, eating the donut a lot faster than should be possible. How he chewed and swallowed so fast was a miracle. "That is good."

Ayumi was the one who laughed aloud and Conan saw the other two blinking at the skinny would-be assassin. "Wow, you ate that faster than Genta-kun."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, nothing!" Mitsuhiko raised his hands when Genta turned on him and Conan knew he wasn't the only one who noticed Gin tense up.

Violence of any kind was probably a bad idea around him, even if it wasn't serious.

"Hey." Ayumi got up to get another donut, handing it to Gin again. "Want another one? We're having cake too, and I'm sure if you're still hungry the professor has something more we could have."

"Ah, this is fine. Thanks again." Gin blushed, eating his second donut at a more noticeable pace.

"Does your eye hurt?"

Gin stopped eating, wiping his fingers off on his pants and lightly touching under his right eye. "Not really. I kind of forgot about it until you said something."

"You should still put ice on it. It'll get worse if you leave it alone."

Gin held the bite of donut out he had left. "I can't really eat and hold ice on it at the same time. It'll be fine. I've had a black eye before. You can tell it's not that bad."

Ayumi still looked worried but she dropped the subject, scooting a bit over to Conan again, and he noticed her pull on Gin's shirt a bit to get him to move over a little more too so they weren't so spread out.

Conan smiled along with them. These were really good kids and spending some time with them would likely do Gin more good than if he hadn't come here or if he'd decided to lock him up in a room somewhere until they could fix all this.

"So, where are you from?"

Haibara's words, her first since Gin had apologized to her hours before, made Conan tense. He tried to subtly look at the other while Gin got over his initial shock at being spoken to by her as well.

"Ah, why? I don't think you can come over to my house right now. My parents are out of town. I'm pretty sure I'm staying with four-eyes tonight, right?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, you're sleeping over? Why don't we all play games at the professor's tonight? Ayumi's sure her parents won't mind." Ayumi jumped up a bit in her seat.

"We have school tomorrow but I'm sure if we say Mouri-san will take us then it'll be okay, right?" Mitsuhiko, instead of looking towards him, looked towards the professor.

"Don't you kids have homework? It was a short day today but-"

"Nope. Nothing that's due tomorrow anyway."

"Yay, we get to sleep over at the professor's!"

Hakase sighed, coming over with the box the cake was in. "I suppose, as long as your parents all say it's okay."

"Ah, no. I don't think… I…" Gin held out a hand, meeting his eyes "can… can I?"

Conan sighed. "I can tell Mouri-ojisan that we're sleeping over tonight here instead. I doubt he'll rent a car to help us get to school but since you're not from around here we'll all be able to fit into the professor's, so it's not a big deal."

"You get to miss school? That must me nice." Genta looked wishful, putting his hands behind his head.

"Yeah. It's nice not to have to go now and then."

The professor put down the box that had the cake in it. When he opened the lid and Conan realized what must have happened, the cake smashed to pieces and the deliverymen from earlier making sure the customers remembered their faces, the kids were disappointed enough that Hakase got into his car with Haibara and went to get another cake.

…

"What are we supposed to do while we wait?" Mitsuhiko looked towards the TV but didn't turn it on.

"They're just going to the store." Ayumi stood up on the couch, parting Gin's hair. "You know, you're hair is longer than Ayumi's is. Ayumi didn't think that boys liked long hair."

"I just don't cut it much." Gin shrugged. "You can if you want to."

"Me?"

"Aha ha. I don't think you want us messing with your hair." Mitsuhiko didn't really find any amusement in the statement. "I mean, we're just kids."

"It's fine. If it looks bad or anything I can just cut more off."

"I… guess."

"Ayumi doesn't know. What if she messes up and you can't fix it?"

"Hey, I said it was fine. I don't mind shaving it if I have to. It sounds like fun."

"Well, if you're going to shave it anyway…"

"Ayumi promises she'll do her best to make it look great!" Ayumi shouted, hands at her sides. She slowly got off the couch. "But the professor might not like it if we get hair on the carpet. Let's go in the bathroom and put a towel down."

"Ayumi-chan, you shouldn't go in the bathroom alone. Here, I'll help." Mitsuhiko cleaned up some of the table and Genta shoved the last of the donut he had into his mouth.

"I wanna watch too!"

Conan had to admit, it was kind of fun. Ayumi was scared to have the scissors in her hands and went slowly at first, taking off more and more when Gin simply had too much hair. The end result was a lot of hair on the floor, a few pieces of which Conan took, just to have, and a much shorter haired and obvious boy now with them. The back looked a bit uneven, since Ayumi didn't really know how to layer hair, though it didn't look as bad as Conan was expecting. If Gin hadn't had long hair he suspected the top would be sticking up more with the few inches of it he had left.

Gin couldn't even really run his hands through it when Ayumi was done and more of it was on the towel and his clothes than on him. "Huh. Feels lighter."

The others laughed to one degree or another.

"I've never had my hair grow that long before. My mom almost makes me cut it." Mitsuhiko pushed some of his own back, Ayumi clearing having attempted about the same length, if not in a messier style.

"Oh, my mom doesn't really care. My dad used to cut it but… it's just better when it's long." Gin's smile was slightly strained and Conan didn't think he was the only one who picked up on it. The kids were getting pretty good.

"Well, now that that's done let's hurry up and clean the place up before they get back with the cake!"

…

The hair was harder to clean up than it should have been. The towel used might or might not have had more left on it that they couldn't get off before it was thrown in with the dirty clothes. Hakase looked at them funny but didn't say anything, likely questioning if he had even remembered Gin with longer hair. Haibara, for her part, seemed happy for some reason and didn't mind so much when she had to help Gin play the video game since, as the new and inexperienced player, Conan wound up as his opponent and could hardly help.

In the morning, Conan faked having caught the same cold that Gin no longer had clinging to him. He'd taken medicine before bed and it was more or less gone. The lie was good enough to allow them to be the only two left in the house.

"I'm going to have to go home today, aren't I?"

"Yeah, though I have no idea how that's going to work. I don't even know if I can find that girl again. Who knows, it might be a while still." Conan just couldn't have him go to school with them for obvious reasons, and leaving him alone at the house seemed just as bad.

"You know, I really don't want to go back. I want to stay here." Gin stood against the wall, Conan still sitting on the bed, and he could see some tears in the other's eyes. "I like it here. The people here are a lot nicer. I know I probably have to go back, but…"

"It's time, and it probably shouldn't have been messed with to begin with." Conan didn't know what repercussions it would have. Taking away Gin from the past and letting him grow up here instead… around them… That couldn't possibly give them a worse result. "We'll ask, when the time comes."

Gin relaxed a bit, though he looked tired still. Conan still felt it too. They had been awake a lot longer than either of them should have and it had been a fairly late night. Maybe that was it. "Thanks. Think I can mess with that TV now with all the buttons? I thought it would look weird, after they turned it on for that weird playable movie with the cars we had on last night."

"Video game. It's a video game. And sure, the professor won't even notice. Let's go."

"Then what do you call the games on the small TV phone thing?"

"A video game."

"Still?"

"Yeah, the console doesn't matter it-"

"Console?"

"Ah, the… thing it's played on doesn't matter. If it's a game, it's still a game, on the TV or on the phone."

"Oh. Right. And here." Gin reached into his pocket and pulled out what was left of the carton he had. "I thought someone would notice if I just threw them away in the garbage and I don't want them anymore. The others might get mad if they saw them. I haven't had clothes to change into so it didn't really matter but just in case."

Conan looked at the pack in his hands before looking back at the kid. How did Gin turn into the person he was? If he could… but that'd be messing with time. Besides, this kid didn't need to know what he was going to turn into. "I'll get rid of them."

The television having more than a few dozen channels was enough to keep Gin interested. Heck, he was more absorbed in the news than anything else, but Conan wound up watching game shows and talk shows as well. He doubted Gin knew anyone that was still on the air, and if he did, they'd be reruns of people probably long dead by now.

Maybe they were both hoping that, an hour after the professor got back, that the knock at the door was someone else.

Conan answered, as Gin still shouldn't be out in the open. The teen from before peeked in without even a greeting, taking a step to be sure. "Good, he's still alive. We have to hurry. If we leave the timeline as messed up as it is, who knows what's going to happen."

"Ah, wait." Conan closed the door after the teen had already walked. "I have a few questions for you."

"Yeah? Like what? He can't stay if that's what you're asking. You've had more than enough time to find out whatever you wanted about him. He has to go back before the present suffers." The teenage girl stood behind the couch. "Come on, boy. I have something for you. Take it and turn it over. It'll put you back to a few minutes after you left."

"I- I don't…" Gin stood up on the couch to face both of them, the remote in his hands and held to his chest, like some sort of makeshift weapon. "I don't want to go back."

"Hey, wait. What if he does stay here?" Conan really wanted to know. "He's better off here and, honestly, sending him back might do worse than keeping him here. Some bad things happen that he's a part of, so if we keep him here then-"

"Then others might live. Others might die. None of that matters because it's in the _past_." The teen let out a breath. "I hate describing this to people who don't understand. We can't rewrite history. If we could more of us would be doing it, don't you think? We could erase ourselves with one little act. Human's aren't simple creatures and I'd rather be alive to see tomorrow."

"You don't understand-"

"I understand he needs to go back. And soon." The teen held out her hand. "Here. It's an hourglass, like the one the boy here used to visit you before. This one can't be flipped over though. I'm going to watch to make sure you go back to when you were supposed to. All of this will feel like a dream, so don't worry if you're afraid of changing the future anyway. It should all be forgotten within a year at most."

"I don't _want_ to forget it!" Gin held the remote closer, noticing he couldn't take a step back so he took a step to the side. "I want to stay here! I- I don't think that it'll really make a big deal. No one cares if I'm home or not. No one cares of I go to school or not. Mom's going to leave anyway. She can take care of herself. Please," Gin started crying, his words hitching a bit, and Conan really felt for him. "Please, I want to stay."

The teen put her hand down, her voice serious. "So you're set on staying here, even if it means that people might not be born or die? That it'll change the course of our current history in ways that we can't understand, maybe even warp it badly enough that people here get lost, change, die?"

"I- I don't know. But I really, really don't want to leave." Gin gave up trying to get away, sitting down backwards on the cushion he was on and curling up, trying to hid the tears now that his hair wasn't long enough to do it. "I really don't. Let me stay. I'll do whatever I have to."

"And what if it kills him." The teen took a step back and Conan was surprised when her hand landed on his head. "This boy is dead. If you stay here, he dies."

"What?"

Gin didn't so much mimic his question as he did choke on the air, but the response was the same.

"If you don't go back he's going to be shot and he's going to die. If not for you being somewhere in his life, doing something with him, he's dead. I can feel the warped air around him even now, know that he shouldn't be where he is. You'll be here, sure. The present will fill in the gaps he'll leave without changing much. If you want to be that selfish."

"Why would I-"

"Hush." The teen moved her hand a bit where it was, to get him to be quiet. "You're not part of this conversation anymore. You're dead. In another day, if he doesn't go back, the timeline will make sure of it."

"I… I don't want…" The teen might have taken Conan out of the conversation but Gin didn't. He peeked at him from over the sofa, clearly upset and young and about to have his life ripped apart for a second time. "I… I don't want… I don't want you to die. You- you brought me here. You made me…" Gin clearly couldn't speak anymore, hyperventilating on his words, trying to stop himself from crying.

"I won't die, not if he's here." Conan wasn't going to let that be the end of it. "You _do_ have the ability to mess with time. If we fix it so he stays here, we can fix it so that I don't die."

"Then what reason would you have for ever meeting him? You'd throw everything off. The reason for the initial time travel would be gone, and the world wouldn't know what to do with itself. Odds were you'd be thrown back into your own times then, like it or not."

"It- it's okay." Gin wiped at his eyes, getting up and going around the small bit of cough that separated them. His eyes were red but he smiled, sniffling a little. "It's fine. Thinking of it that way, I'm going to meet you again anyway, and I'm going to save your life. I guess that's enough, for now." He held out his hand. "Maybe we can be friends in the future too."

Conan clenched his hands at his side, refusing to look at either of them. As if. As if he'd ever be friends with the person he saw before him that he knew now. If things were different, if he stayed here, yes. Not with what he'd become otherwise.

Gin wouldn't leave though, if he knew that. And even if he did, the child didn't have to have that on his shoulders.

Conan reached out with his own hand, his smile very forced, but he couldn't find a way to smile for real. "Sure, maybe in the future."

"Here." The teen handed Gin another hourglass, like the one Conan had picked up earlier. One side on this one was completely black though, where the sand must have been currently sitting. "Turn this upside down. I'll make sure everything goes the way it should."

Gin nodded, clearing away a few stray tears. He turned the hourglass upside down and the next thing Conan knew he was being hugged.

"I'm sorry, I already forgot your name again, four-eyes. But thanks, this was a lot of fun, and I know it's a better future than what I'm dealing with now. I'm sorry if I forget you again, even when I'm older."

"It's okay." Conan patted him on the back, hugging him a bit in return. It was such a strange thing. "I'll never forget you."

Gin let him go, a smile on his face and too many teeth showing, as he simply faded away. "Thank you."

And then he was gone, the world still surviving around them to mock him.

"You know," Conan said to the teen, who's name he finally didn't want to know. "He tried to kill me."

The teen smirked, turned, and left the house. "Yes, and he's also the person who saved your life."

Conan laughed to himself, alone in the house. Irony could be painful.


End file.
